to a little scant white nightgown. She stood a little way off and saw
herself offering up Thomas Jefferson. It was a dreadful dream.

The night was a perfectly black one, the kind that Rebecca Mary was
afraid of. It was the only thing in the world she had ever been
afraid of--a black night. But after the dream she got up stealthily
and slipped through the blackness, out to Thomas Jefferson. It was
only out to the little lean-to shed, but it seemed a very long way to
Rebecca Mary. The blackness pressed up against her, she put out her
little, trembling hands and pushed through it.

"Thomas Jefferson! Thomas Jefferson!" she called softly. But he was a
sound sleeper, she remembered; she would have to find him and wake him.
In the darkness she felt about on Thomas Jefferson's perch for Thomas
Jefferson . When the little groping hand came upon something very soft
and warm, the other hand went up to join it, and together they lifted
Thomas Jefferson down. He gave a protesting croak, and then, because he
was acquainted with the clasp of the two small hands, and night or day
liked it, he went back to his interrupted dreams and said not another
word. Thomas Jefferson had never dreamed a Bible dream--never heard of
Abraham or Isaac, had no soul to be disquieted.

With her burden against her breast Rebecca Mary pushed back through
the darkness, up to the black little room under the eaves. She felt
about for her little carpet-covered shoe box and gently crowded the
great white bulk into it. Then she crept back into bed and lay on the
outer edge with her loving, light little hand on Thomas Jefferson's
feathers. The trouble in her burdened soul poured itself out.

"Oh, Thomas Jefferson," she whispered down to the heap of soft